Rajni Bakshi is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist and author. She writes about social and political movements in contemporary India. Rajni is the founder and curator of Ahimsa Conversations, an online platform for exploring the possibilities of nonviolence.
She was formerly the Gandhi Peace Fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. [1] Her journalism has appeared in many English and Hindi newspapers and magazines. [2] Bakshi attended school in Kingston, Jamaica, Indraprastha College (Delhi), George Washington University (Washington D.C.) and Rajasthan University (Jaipur). [2]
In 2000 Rajni received the Homi Bhabha Fellowship. Her book Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom (2009) won two Vodafone Crossword Book Awards, one in the "Non Fiction" category, and one in the "Popular Award" category. [3] [4]
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, endeared as Lokmanya, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence activist. He was one third of the Lal Bal Pal triumvirate. The British colonial authorities called him "The father of the Indian unrest". He was also conferred with the title of "Lokmanya", which means "accepted by the people as their leader". Mahatma Gandhi called him "The Maker of Modern India".
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and is the father of modern Indian nationalism who is credited with raising interfaith awareness and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion in the late nineteenth century.
Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission (RKM) is a spiritual and philanthropic organisation headquartered in Belur Math, West Bengal. The mission is named after the Indian Hindu spiritual guru and mystic Ramakrishna. The mission was founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Swami Vivekananda on 1 May 1897. The organisation mainly propagates the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta–Advaita Vedanta and four yogic ideals – Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and Raja yoga. The mission bases its work on the principles of Karma Yoga, the principle of selfless work done with a dedication to God.
Sister Nivedita was an Irish teacher, author, social activist, school founder and disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She spent her childhood and early youth in Ireland. She was engaged to marry a Welsh youth, but he died soon after their engagement.
Sahajanand Saraswati was an ascetic, a nationalist and a peasant leader of India. Although born in United Provinces, his social and political activities focussed mostly on Bihar in the initial days, and gradually spread to the rest of India with the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha. He had set up an ashram at Bihta, near Patna, Bihar carried out most of his work in the later part of his life from there. He was an intellectual, prolific writer, social reformer and revolutionary.
Dennis Gilmore Dalton is a professor of political science from the United States. From 1969 until 2008, Dalton was the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Dalton's work had a particular focus on the thought and leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and civil disobedience. Before his retirement from Barnard College at Columbia University, he gave lectures on political theory from Plato to the present, eastern and western philosophies. He began teaching at Barnard in 1969, teaching classes in classical and modern political theory.
Pupul Jayakar was an Indian cultural activist and writer, best known for her work on the revival of traditional and village arts, handlooms, and handicrafts in post-independence India. According to The New York Times, she was known as "India's 'czarina of culture'", and founded arts festivals that promoted Indian arts in France, Japan, and the United States. She was a friend and biographer to both the Nehru-Gandhi family and J Krishnamurti. Jayakar had a close relationship with three prime ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi, and she was a close friend of Indira Gandhi. She served as cultural adviser to the latter two, confirming her preeminence in cultural matters.
Vedanta Societies refer to organizations, groups, or societies formed for the study, practice, and propagation of Vedanta, the culmination of Vedas. More specifically, they "comprise the American arm of the Indian Ramakrishna movement" and refer to branches of the Ramakrishna Order located outside India.
Ravindra Kumar is a Political Scientist, Peace Educator, an Indologist, a Humanist, Cultural Anthropologist and a former Vice-Chancellor of CCS University, Meerut (India).
The Great Bombay Textile Strike was a textile strike called on 18 January 1982 by the mill workers of Mumbai under trade union leader Dutta Samant. The purpose of the strike was to obtain a bonus payment and an increase in wages. Nearly 250,000 workers of 65 textile mills went on strike in Mumbai.
Sister Gargi, born Marie Louise Burke, was a writer and an eminent researcher on Swami Vivekananda, and a leading literary figure of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda movement. Gargi was introduced to the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda movement in 1948 by Swami Ashokananda. She is known for her six-volume work, Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries. Her New Discoveries are considered as indispensable for Swami Vivekananda research.
Indraprastha College for Women, also known as Indraprastha College or IP College, is the oldest women's college in Delhi, India. Established in 1924, it is a constituent college of University of Delhi.
Swami Anand was a monk, a Gandhian activist and a Gujarati writer from India. He was the manager of Gandhi's publications such as Navajivan and Young India and inspired Gandhi to write his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. He wrote sketches, memoir, biographies, philosophy, travelogues and translated some works.
The Song of the Sannyasin is a poem of thirteen stanzas written by Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda composed the poem in July 1895 when he was delivering a series of lectures to a groups of selected disciples at the Thousand Island Park, New York. In the poem he defined the ideals of Sannyasa or monastic life.
"Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached" is a slogan popularized in the late 19th century by Indian Hindu monk and philosopher Swami Vivekananda, who took inspiration in a sloka of Katha Upanishad. It was his message to the world to get out of their hypnotized state of mind and discover their true nature. This shloka is the basis of the title of the book The Razor's Edge and the 1946 film and the 1984 film, and also of various music albums in the west by bands like AC/DC, Dave Holland, etc.
Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Indian Hindu monk, is considered one of the most influential people of modern India and Hinduism. Rabindranath Tagore suggested to study Vivekananda's works to learn about India. Indian independence activist Subhas Chandra Bose regarded Vivekananda as his spiritual teacher. Mahatma Gandhi said that after reading the works of Vivekananda, his love for his nation became a thousand-fold.
In 1888, Swami Vivekananda left the monastery as a Parivrâjaka— the Hindu religious life of a wandering monk, "without fixed abode, without ties, independent and strangers wherever they go". His sole possessions were a kamandalu, staff and his two favourite books: the Bhagavad Gita and The Imitation of Christ. Narendra travelled extensively in India for five years, visiting centres of learning and acquainting himself with diverse religious traditions and social patterns. He developed sympathy for the suffering and poverty of the people, and resolved to uplift the nation. Living primarily on bhiksha (alms), Swami Vivekananda travelled on foot and by railway. During his travels he met, and stayed with Indians from all religions and walks of life: scholars, dewans, rajas, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, paraiyars and government officials.
Jyotirmaya Sharma is a professor of political science at the Department of Political Science and, currently, the Dean of School of Social Sciences, at the University of Hyderabad, Telangana, in India. He was a Senior Fellow at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Germany, between 2019-2021. Between September 2015 and June 2016, he was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria. Earlier, between January–June 2012, he was a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and Fellow of the Lichtenberg-Kolleg at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany, in 2012–13. He was also a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the French Network of Institutes for Advanced Study, RFIEA between 2013 and 2016. In January 2015, he was appointed member of the scientific advisory board of the Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Göttingen.
Sadashiv Sathe or Bhau Sathe was an Indian sculptor. His notable works include the 5-metre high statue of Mahatma Gandhi that is part of the main structure of the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial situated at Dandi, Navsari and the 18-foot equestrian statue of Shivaji at the Gateway of India, Mumbai.
Shubhada Varadkar is an Odissi exponent, author and practitioner of Indian classical dance. She is an ‘A’ grade National artist for Doordarshan. She has received the Maharashtra State Cultural Award 2019–20. For the first time created a collaboration called Flamencodissi, production of Odissi and Flameco in 2019. She presented Geet Govind verses in 1995